Michael Jordan

by Roland Lazenby

  Flu

  Jordan had seen his shooting plummet to 40 percent after having shot 51 percent in the first two games. What came next was the great “flu game.” Years after the event, the story lingered that Jordan had indulged in late-night cigar smoking, card playing, and drinking, supposedly at a chateau in the Utah mountains, on the eve of Game 5. The official word the next day was that he had been hit with a “viral illness.”

  “I was doing the game,” recalled former NBC color man Matt Guokas, who was working with Marv Albert. “Marv was so good as a play-by-play guy. He had the sense of drama. On that particular game, I was thinking to myself, ‘What’s the big deal? Michael plays great all the time.’ But Marv had a sense of the moment in making it supreme for the fans watching it. The other thing was, there were conspiracy theories of what was really wrong with Michael. We just took it at face value that he had the flu and just went ahead and played. But according to the stories and rumors, he was supposedly at Robert Redford’s chalet up in the mountains playing poker all night and partying too hard.”

  ESPN’s Jalen Rose would be caught articulating a similar claim in an Internet video clip in 2012. Whether it was a real virus or the “Milwaukee flu” will forever be caught up in the Jordan mystery. Certainly he was known for sleeping little and playing much in and around his basketball life. Regardless of what made Jordan sick, his play was the genuine thing. As Game 5 approached, the anxiety was hanging over the Bulls like the thunderstorms that rolled up Utah’s cottonwood canyons. The first shock hit his teammates at the morning shootaround. He was too sick to attend? Jordan miss a key practice? Never.

  “It’s kinda scary,” said Bulls reserve forward Jason Caffey, sitting wide-eyed in the locker room before the game. “You don’t know what’s going on when it’s like this.” In the darkness of the training room a few feet away, Jordan lay quite still. Yet it was a circumstance that veteran Jordan observers had seen before, dating back to high school days.

  “Michael’s sick?” one reporter asked. “He’ll score 40.”

  Despite Jordan’s well-known flair for the dramatic, this performance was no act. “I’ve played a lot of seasons with Michael, and I’ve never seen him so sick,” Pippen said afterward. “I didn’t know if he would even put his uniform on. He’s the greatest and definitely the MVP in my mind.”

  He appeared to operate on adrenaline for a time. He scored Chicago’s first 4 points, then faltered weakly while Utah rushed out to a 16-point lead early in the second quarter, 34–18. Jordan, though, fixed his focus on the rim and started taking the ball inside. He contributed 6 points on a 19–6 run that pulled the Bulls to within three, at 42–39.

  The Bulls caught a break when Malone was forced to sit with an early third foul. Jordan’s inside work also produced 8 free throws in the second quarter and helped give Chicago its first lead, 45–44. Malone found more foul trouble in the third period as the pace slowed, but Utah forged a 5-point lead to start the fourth and quickly expanded it to 8.

  By then, Jordan had fought off the weakness and found his zone. He scored 15 points down the stretch to pressure the Jazz, possession after possession. The Bulls were down by one when he went to the free throw line with forty-six seconds to go. He hit the first and snatched up the loose ball when he missed the second. Moments later he hit a three on a pass from Pippen, and the Bulls had ridden their championship experience to a 3–2 series lead. Jordan stood under the Utah basket punching his fists into the air triumphantly as the game ended.

  “As far as big wins, I think this is as big a win as we’ve had in a playoff situation like this, especially getting down in the first half and having fought back,” Phil Jackson said.

  “I almost played myself into passing out,” Jordan said. “I came in and I was dehydrated, and it was all to win a basketball game. I gave a lot of effort and I’m just glad we won because it would have been devastating if we had lost. I was really tired, very weak at halftime. I told Phil to use me in spurts, but somehow I found the energy to stay strong and I wanted it really bad.”

  He finished with 38, after hitting 13 for 27 from the field with 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals, and a block. “He hadn’t gotten out of bed all day, standing up was literally a nauseating experience, and he had dizzy spells and so forth,” Jackson said. “We were worried about his amount of minutes, but he said, ‘Let me play,’ and he played forty-four minutes. That’s an amazing effort in itself.”

  Pippen’s defensive play and fine floor game also made the victory possible. He contributed 17 points, 10 rebounds, and 5 assists. “Michael was great, this we all know,” said Charles Barkley, who was sitting courtside in the Delta Center. “But I thought one of the keys to the game was the second quarter. Utah had a chance to blow the Bulls out and didn’t. One of the reasons the Jazz didn’t was because Scottie made some big plays during Chicago’s run.”

  The series finally returned to Chicago, where Jordan finished the season’s business with another perfect Hollywood ending. The Jazz took the lead early and valiantly held it until the Bulls pressure took over down the stretch. Jordan contributed 39 points and two hours of defense, all capped off with a sweet little assist to Steve Kerr, who was still kicking himself for missing a three that could have sent Game 4 into overtime. “Steve’s been fighting with himself because of Game 4,” Jordan explained afterward. “He kept his head in the pillow for hours because he let the team down, because everyone knows he’s probably one of the best shooters in the game, and he had the opportunity to pick us up and give us a lift, and he was very disappointed.

  “When Phil drew up the play at the end, which everybody in the gym, everybody on TV knew was coming to me,” Jordan continued, “I looked at Steve and said, ‘This is your chance, because I know Stockton is going to come over and help. And I’m going to come to you.’ And he said, ‘Give me the ball.’ ” That’s something John Paxson would have said, Jordan pointed out. Kerr drilled it, the building exploded in delirium, and Chicago had its fifth.

  “Tonight Steve Kerr earned his wings from my perspective,” Jordan said, “because I had faith in him, and I passed him the ball, and he knocked down the shot. I’m glad he redeemed himself, because if he’d have missed that shot, I don’t think he could have slept all summer long. I’m very happy for Steve Kerr.”

  “I made that shot, at the end, when he passed me the ball,” Kerr recalled, laughing as he looked back. “And I’ll always remember, he got interviewed after the game and he said, ‘Well, Steve Kerr earned his stripes.’ And I remember thinking, ‘I haven’t earned my stripes yet?! Wait, we won the title last year. I made some shots. I’ve done some good things for this team.’ I didn’t realize it. ‘I haven’t earned my stripes yet?’ ”

  Such was life in the supporting cast.

  Much of the rest of the roster had struggled, but Scottie Pippen had played off Jordan masterfully. Jordan was the obvious MVP, but Pippen had been there throughout. Jordan said he would keep the MVP trophy but give Pippen the car that accompanied the award.

  “I’m going to make sure he gets the car,” Jordan said, “because he’s like a little brother to me. He goes through the pain, and we work out every day. He’s joining me, working out every day to stay healthy and get out here and provide for the organization and the city so that we can be healthy and continue to be champions.”

  As he talked, Jordan grew bolder and called for Jerry Reinsdorf to keep the team together for the opportunity to defend the title for the coming season. To the public, it seemed like the obvious gesture. But to those in the know, it spelled more trouble.

  Chapter 35

  FIRING UP THE BUS

  EVEN AS HE led the Bulls to their fifth championship, Jordan began seeding his team’s undoing by verbally abusing Jerry Krause on the team bus. Ever since he returned to the game, Jordan had displayed a new anger and aggressiveness with the GM. He was upset with what he felt was Krause’s unwarranted treatment of Pippen, and had been led to believe that Kra
use was responsible for the firing of his favorite coach, Johnny Bach. Even though Jackson tried to dissuade Krause from riding the bus and being around the team, the GM always looked for some way to be a part of the group. However, his presence on the bus left him open to be the butt of Jordan’s jokes, which grew sharper during the championship series in Utah. Was it Jordan’s anger? Was it his bullying nature gone out of control? Whatever the answer, the confrontations on the team bus in 1997 set in motion a new round of conflict.

  “It was unfortunate the way it went down,” Jim Stack said. “It didn’t need to be like that.”

  Perhaps not surprisingly, alcohol was a factor. In the first half hour after a road win, Jordan and various teammates would often down five or six beers and fire up cigars—nothing unusual in professional basketball. Jordan certainly wasn’t inebriated when he started baiting Krause. But he was buzzed enough to turn loose his wicked sense of humor.

  For years, Jordan had sat at the back of the bus after games, zinging teammates and anybody in range with his laser-like sarcasm. He had his favorite regular targets. He would tease Kukoc for his showing in the 1992 Olympics, or for his defense. Equipment manager John Ligmanowski presented an easy target because of his weight. He recalled trying to come back at Jordan, but it was hard to do. Jordan also used humor to police the roster, Ligmanowski said. “If he doesn’t feel somebody’s doing their job, or sucking it up to go play, he’ll say something. He’ll get a dig in and let them know how he feels.”

  Asked about his back-of-the-bus barbs, Jordan said, “I don’t take things too seriously. I take them serious enough. I’m able to laugh at myself before I laugh at anybody else. And that’s important. I can laugh at myself. But then I can be hard.”

  He was particularly hard on Krause during the playoffs in Utah. At least some of it could be attributed to Krause’s constant needling of Jordan over the years in a misguided attempt at bonding.

  “Jerry Krause! Jerry Krause!” Jordan yelled from the back of the bus one day. “Hey, Jerry Krause, let’s go fishing. It’s BYOP—Bring Your Own Pole. Don’t worry. If we don’t catch anything, you can just eat the bait yourself.”

  The players in the back of the bus exploded in laughter, while team staff up front bit their lips. Krause was the team’s vice president and general manager, not to mention their boss. Jackson, who was never the target of Jordan’s barbs, seemed somewhat amused.

  “Those guys would get a few beers in ’em back there, and then they’d start in on him,” one Bulls staff member said.

  “Phil sometimes sits there and says nothing,” said another Bulls employee. “You’re Phil Jackson and your boss is being hammered by one of the players. At least say something. Phil does not stick up for him in any of those situations. It’s just like school kids, like school kids ganging up on somebody.”

  “I don’t know in retrospect what Phil could have done,” Chip Schaefer said. “It’s not like he would have turned and said, ‘That’s enough, Michael.’ ”

  With the team winning and on its way to a championship, Krause endured the abuse in silence. Occasionally when the barrage got especially heavy, the GM would turn to whoever was sitting nearby and say, “The mouth from North Carolina is at it again.”

  “Maybe it’s a defense mechanism as far as Jerry is concerned,” Tex Winter said of Krause’s silence. “But it doesn’t seem to bother him that much. I think he’s got a pretty thick skin.”

  “Brad Sellers, now he was a good draft pick,” Jordan would yell from the back.

  That day, as the team rode back to its quarters in nearby Park City, Chip Schaefer recalled, “We were reduced to like twenty-five miles per hour in these buses because we’d have to climb up over this big summit to get to Park City. It just sort of created this situation where it went on and on.”

  “Hey, Jerry Krause, this bus went faster yesterday without your fat ass on it!” Jordan yelled, followed by the team’s laugh track.

  “Krause doesn’t have much to go back at Michael with. He calls him Baldy or something silly like that,” a Bulls employee observed. “When those guys are having their beers and they’re back there smoking their cigars and they’re buzzed over a victory, if Jerry said anything back to them he’d just be feeding the fire. They would just come back with something worse. That’s the way they are.”

  “They’ll have a couple of beers after a game,” Schaefer said. “I don’t think anybody is abusive about it. They drink their Gatorade and GatorLode, and they like beer, too. Teasing is a cruel thing. It’s cruel when it’s done on a playground with six-year-olds and ten-year-olds and fifteen-year-olds, and it’s cruel with adults, too. Have I heard comments before and cracked a smile? Probably. But I’ve also heard comments before and wished in my heart that he would just be quiet and leave him alone.”

  “That was always very uncomfortable,” Steve Kerr recalled. “I remember Jud Buechler one time saying, ‘Can you imagine James Worthy treating Jerry West this way?’ ”

  Known for testing everybody on the team, Jordan had other targets besides Krause. “I remember one time, on a different trip,” Kerr recalled, “Michael started yapping from the back of the bus and Krause was up at the front. And Ron Harper kind of joined in, and then Michael quickly dismissed him, like, ‘No, no, you’re not allowed to do this. I’m only allowed to do this.’ ”

  Although players getting on each other has long been a fact of life with sports teams, it was obvious to Kerr that Jordan didn’t like the idea of a team rebellion. “He just wanted to torment Krause. He tested everybody, but that wasn’t a test. That was genuine. And I’m not sure where it came from. It was embarrassing. And I’m not really sure why he felt compelled to do it, but he did it.”

  These were moments of complete humiliation, Kerr recalled, adding that he’d never been in another situation where one man did that to another, especially someone supposed to be his supervisor.

  Luc Longley admitted that while Jordan’s barbs made the players laugh, the moment could also be uncomfortable, especially if you were the butt of Jordan’s jokes. “They’re a little bit tense at times. But for the most part, they’re pretty funny,” Longley said. “He’s in a position where he can crack on people fairly securely. But people crack back at him, and he handles that just as well. It’s usually not a mean thing.”

  “I think there’s always been a tension there,” Bill Wennington said. “For whatever reason, Michael just always gets on Jerry. Whenever Jerry’s around he’s gonna get on him, especially if it’s a team function where all the players are around. Michael’s gonna get on him. And the bus is a closed area, so there’s nowhere for anyone to go. So you just gotta sit there.”

  “He’s very smart,” Chip Schaefer said of Jordan. “The worst thing you can do is try to come back at him. If you don’t, it’ll fizzle out. Like if he starts making fun of you, you don’t turn back around and say, ‘Who you talking to, Baldy?’ Then you’ve elevated it to his level. You’re better off just laughing it off and hoping it will move on to somebody else maybe.”

  “Michael’s ability puts him in a position where he feels he can go out there and do that,” Wennington explained. “As far as what he does with the team, he’s a great basketball player and he’s our team leader. And team leaders can zing anyone. It’s a totem pole, and he’s high man on the totem pole right now, so everyone under him’s gotta take it. What you gotta do—at least what I do—is just take your lumps. If you start to zing him back, no one’s gonna side with me. They’re all gonna side with him, ’cause no one wants him zinging them. So it’ll be twelve against one. So you just take your two minutes of lumps.…

  “He’ll ride anyone,” Wennington added. “They’ll get in the mood, and they’ll just start picking on someone, and that’s it. But you gotta be careful ’cause every now and then, he’ll zing someone and you laugh a little too loud, and he’ll turn around and look at you like, ‘Let’s go for you!’ ”

  Not surprisingly, Jordan’s jabs
were a lot easier to take after a win. “He’s cracking on people all the time,” Kerr said at the time. “Those are fun moments. Those are moments that really last in the memory. He said some incredibly funny things. I think what makes them kind of special is that it’s just us on the bus. It’s just the team. They’re kind of intimate moments because they’re right after an emotional game, one way or another. The guys get going on the back of the bus, and it’s very entertaining.”

  “Michael is a very funny comedian,” Ron Harper said. “He keeps everybody loose. When it’s very tense, when there are tight ballgames, he keeps you very, very loose. He has an ability to say things that you don’t expect. He scores from the back of the bus a lot. He gets on Jerry Krause a lot.”

  Asked if Krause took the ribbing well, Harper laughed ruefully. “He don’t have a choice, does he?”

  “I think Jerry has the ability to maybe recognize Michael for what he is,” Tex Winter said. “He knows that Michael has the personality that likes to challenge people and belittle people and berate people. I think he just accepts that. He really doesn’t have much choice, as great a basketball player as Michael is. And Jerry’s the first to tell you that. Everybody recognizes how valuable Michael is to this ball club.” At the same time, Winter believed that the situation added to Krause’s frustrations in dealing with the team. Did Jordan cross the line with Krause? “I guess maybe that there isn’t even a line because he crosses it so often,” Winter said, adding that the situation was simply a byproduct of the mingling of “the personalities, their egos.”